


Tacit Tact

by nxttime



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jaeger Pilot AU, Jaeger Pilots, Light Angst, woooo!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 09:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19743226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nxttime/pseuds/nxttime
Summary: “Welcome aboard Tacit Tact,” Wally says, pocketing his hands. “We call it Tic Tac.”“Tacit Tact,” Tim repeats, trying the name on his tongue. “I like it.”





	Tacit Tact

“Three months, twelve days, and eight hours, Bruce.”

“What?”

Dick gives Bruce a bland look, arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the wall, and continues staring.

Slowly, he repeats himself. “Three months. Twelve days. And eight hours. You’ve had me sitting on the sidelines because you couldn’t approve anyone Drift Compatible with me. For three months.” Raising a brow, he says, “ can I meet my new co-pilot, and when are we going to try the neural handshake?”

Bruce gives Dick the most unimpressed look he’s seen in a long time.

Dick cracks a smile.

“You’ll meet him—”

The door opens, then, and a teen’s head pokes through. He’s got long hair—long enough to put in a very small man-bun, Dick thinks—and pale skin. His eyes are a sky blue color that Dick vaguely remembers, and he narrows his eyes as he tries to place this kid.

“—right now, apparently.” Bruce raises an eyebrow at the teen who flushes a little in embarrassment as he closes the door behind him. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

The teen fidgets a little, then speaks. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t know you were in the middle of a meeting…”

Dick snorts, eyeing the kid, then looks at Bruce.

“This is my Drift Compatible co-pilot?” he asks. “Seriously?”

Bruce nods as the teen tenses.

“Timothy Jackson Drake, this is Richard John Grayson, your new co-pilot.”

_Timothy Drake. I know that name._

Frowning as he tries to remember just _where_ he knows that name from, Tim sticks his hand out to him.

Glancing at the hand, then to Tim, Dick smiles and shakes his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Tim,” he says. “My name’s Richard but you can call me Dick. I prefer it, actually.”

Tim nods.

Clearing his throat, Bruce says, “You’re scheduled to attempt a neural handshake in thirty minutes, so I suggest you spend some time getting to know each other.”

“Aye-aye, captain,” Dick replies sarcastically, letting Tim’s hand go to salute mockingly before opening the door.

“Yes, sir,” is what Tim’s response is, but he doesn’t move to follow Dick, instead awkwardly shifting once.

Dick blinks, then laughs.

“Bruce,” he says, still laughing. “He wants you to dismiss us.”

Bruce seems surprised as he says, “You’re dismissed.”

As Dick and his new co-pilot leave the room, Dick keeps laughing, throwing an arm over Tim’s shoulders.

“You’re great, kid,” he says, still smiling hard as they walk to Dick’s room. “I like you.”

Tim nods once.

“I’d hope so,” is his response as he loses all nervous and fidgety-ness. He collects himself, looking disinterested yet invested, calculating yet alive, serious but loose.

Dick’s grin widens.

* * *

“So, how you wanna play this?”

“What?”

“Twenty questions style?”

“Wh—”

“Twenty questions style it is!”

Tim gives his new co-pilot an exasperated look from where they sit on Dick’s bottom bunk. Dick just flashes him that grin again, and Tim rolls his eyes, relenting.

“Fine,” he says. “Twenty questions style. What’s your first question?”

Dick hums, drumming his fingers on his cheek.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

This, for some reason, makes Dick laugh. Tim raises a brow and asks him the same question.

“I’m twenty-eight,” Dick answers. Moving on from the question, he asks, “Your parents. Are they alive?”

“No.”

“Neither are mine. How old were you when they died?”

“Twelve.”

“I was nine. Kaiju?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Nah. Mobster in Gotham.”

“Sorry.”

“Me too. How’d Bruce find you?”

“Black market. You?”

“He was there when my parents died.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Where’re you from?”

“Me? Gotham. My parents? My mom was from somewhere in Asia, and my dad was American.”

“Cool.”

“You?”

“Roma, not to be confused with Romanian.”

“Neat.”

They went like that, back and forth, for about twenty minutes. When there was only ten minutes before their scheduled attempt at a neural handshake, Tim got up to crawl on his bunk—the one directly atop Dick’s—and drag his piloting uniform out of his bag.

Dick reaches under his bed for his duffel with his uniform, then rolls off his bed and stands up.

“You know,” Dick says, stripping his shirt off, “we should probably hang these somewhere.”

Tim makes a noise of agreement, dropping off the bunk to the ground, and starts to change too.

“I am, like, ninety percent sure I have a closet here,” Dick continues.

Snorting, Tim asks, “Haven’t you been here for three months?”

“Yep.”

Tim just shakes his head and finishes stripping down to his boxers, revealing his lithe muscles.

Dick wolf-whistles jokingly, and Tim rolls his eyes as he steps into his black compression suit, Dick doing the same with his own.

“These are _uncomfortable,”_ Dick complains just for the sake of conversation. “So tight.”

Tim shrugs. “They’re not that bad,” he says. “And, either way, shouldn’t you be used to skin-tight stuff, mister ex-trapeze artist?”

Chuckling, Dick replies, “You got me there.”

Tim smiles a little and they both start pulling on the other, heavier, layers to their uniforms.

Once they’re all dressed, there's only two minutes before their neural handshake, and Dick slaps Tim on the back, saying, “Race you!”

He leaves his new co-pilot spluttering as he runs ahead and laughs. It’s barely much more effort to run, since their uniforms are designed to be as lightweight as possible.

“You cheater!” Tim yells after him.

Dick just laughs again in response.

They reached their Jaeger three minutes late, neither having broken much of a sweat and still completely energized.

Tim whistles at the sight of their Jaeger, and Wally walks over in his red and white boiler suit, flashing the two a smile.

“Hey, guys,” Wally greets. “I’m gonna be the technician monitoring your Drift.”

“Nice seeing you, Walls,” Dick says as he and Tim follow Wally to the cockpit.

Wally grins. “You too, Dick.”

Stepping into the Jaeger, Dick hums and looks around. He’s never been inside.

“Welcome aboard Tacit Tact,” Wally says, pocketing his hands. “We call it Tic Tac.”

“Tacit Tact,” Tim repeats, trying the name on his tongue. “I like it.”

Dick nods his agreement.

“Right, well, whenever you guys are ready, you know the drill.”

Wally leaves them after connecting them to the Jaeger, presumably to head into the monitoring station.

Approaching the right docking station, Dick glances over at Tim who's to the left.

“Ready?” he asks with a smile.

“Hell yeah,” Tim answers.

They both step in at the same time.

* * *

There’s… nothing, nothing at all, to prepare someone for something as intimate as Drifting. Nothing can compare to it.

All at once Tim goes from being inside the machine to being thrust into Dick’s mind. His memories and Dick’s collide like waves crashing against each other, every emotion, every experience, and every impression like raindrops drizzling in Tim’s consciousness.

It’s painful for about a minute before the memories easily and fluidly start to blend and mix. Tim knows everything— _everything_ —there is to know about Dick, his co-pilot—but, now, something much more intimate than just the title of co-pilot, because that can’t quite accurately grasp the depth there is to sharing everything about yourself with someone else—and Dick knows everything there is to know about him.

Their thoughts, their memories, and their souls easily fuse.

The co-pilots open their eyes, and they hear the computer announce, _“Pilot to pilot connection: engaged. Two pilots drifting in neural bridge.”_

As if to confirm what the computer had said, Dick and Tim raise their fists into a ready stance.

 _“How do you guys feel?”_ Wally’s voice asks, crackling into their speakers.

In response Dick and Tim laugh.

* * *

Walking back to their room is peaceful, Tim thinks. He and Dick have reached a certain level of comfort with each other—a normally unattainable range of absolute and complete trust—that they didn’t have before, and might never have had if they hadn’t drifted together. Now they’re thicker than blood.

“Your parents weren’t around,” Dick hums, and Tim nods.

“You have a stuffed elephant named Zitka,” Tim says.

Dick nods. “I do.”

Stopping outside their room, Dick holds his hand out to Tim, who shakes it.

“It’s nice meeting you, little brother.”

Little brother.

Tim can get used to that.

Abruptly there’s a very dramatic gasp and Tim turns to look over his shoulder.

Dick rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

 _“Dick!”_ Some guy Tim’s never seen before gasps, clutching a hand over his heart dramatically. He’s built—reminds Tim of Bruce, but not quite there—and has a white patch of hair in his otherwise ink-colored hair. His eyes are green, he’s about Bruce’s height, and there’s a scar on his neck, but Tim still doesn’t recognize him.

“Hey, Jason,” Dick greets with a smile, slipping his hand out of Tim’s as he moves to hug Jason. “I was wondering when you were gonna pop up.”

Jason makes a noise at the hug, but pats Dick twice on the back.

“You know me,” he says with a slight shrug. “I’ll be around eventually.” Green eyes flicking over Tim’s way, he asks, “Who’s the kid?”

Tim raises a hand and waves.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hey,” Jason answers.

Stepping back, Dick turns to Tim.

“Tim, meet Jason, the first little brother I ever had. Jason, meet Tim, my new little brother and yours too,” he introduces.

Tim quirks an eyebrow at Jason and holds a hand out. “Nice to meet you, Jason.”

Jason nods and shakes his hand. “You too, Tim…?”

“Drake.”

Jason nods again. “Todd.” Glancing over at Dick once the handshake’s over, Jason gestures to Tim with a thumb and asks, “Co-pilot?”

“Yup,” Dick answers, popping the ‘p’ happily.

“Fresh.” Jason looks to Tim, asks, “How’d the Drift go?”

Tim shrugs. “Good.”

 _“Great,”_ Dick amends. “Easier than breathing.”

“Fucking _finally, Grayson,”_ Jason teases, elbowing Dick. “Thought you’d never get a co-pilot.”

Dick snorts, and Tim turns to walk away, as Dick’s saying, “Look who’s talking. You still don’t have one, do you?”

“Oh, fuck off. All the guys they tried matching my head with were soft.”

Tim misses what Dick says next, disappearing into their room and climbing up to his bunk.

Flopping down on his back, Tim breathes a long sigh and closes his eyes, feeling drained to the marrow in his bones now that the adrenaline has faded. He hears Dick and Jason walk into the room and assumes Jason occupies one of the other bunk beds in their large room, but he doesn’t move and promptly dozes off.

When he dreams, he walks through memories that aren’t his own.

He’s standing on a platform several feet above the ground in a large tent, three people standing in front of him. Tim turns and looks around, noting the cheering crowds and banners hanging, and realizes where he is as he returns his attention to the little boy standing between his parents.

The little boy is Dick, and this was the night his parents died.

Tim remembers this. He remembers watching the flying Graysons fall victim to gravity and cut cables. He remembers the scream, above all the others, that rattled him to his very core. The scream of a boy who lost it all.

He remembers it.

Just not from this perspective.

As the older two Graysons take to the trapeze and leave their excited son standing on the platform, Tim walks forward and sits down next to where the boy stands, letting his feet dangle off over the edge.

“You’re going to miss them,” Tim says, watching Mary and John Grayson fly together, doing feats no human should be able to do.

The little boy looks at him questioningly, and Tim adds, “Soon.”

The crowd roars with cheers, and Tim remembers hearing the very sound before two birds had their wings clipped mid-flight.

He grabs Dick and hugs him close to his chest, hiding the boy’s face on his chest, and watches as the wire snaps and Mary falls with her husband, her hand outstretched to her son.

“I’m sorry,” Tim says.

Dick cries against his chest.

* * *

When Dick dreams, he walks through memories that aren’t his own.

He’s standing in a house too big to be so lifeless, the lights out and the air too warm for comfort, the room he stands in like something out of a horror book with all it’s neglected-looking pictures.

Dick walks out of the room, looks around, then heads upstairs. He passes several doors, turns down into a hallway, and walks past more doors, observing everything as he goes.

Dick stops outside a door like all the other ones he’d passed before it.

Then he opens it, and steps into the room.

Sitting there, on his bed and looking out the window, is a small boy in a room too big and empty to be his alone.

“Hi,” Dick says, walking over and sitting with him.

The boy peels his eyes off the window and turns them to Dick.

He recognizes that blue.

“Hi,” Tim answers, looking back at the window.

As he sits down beside Tim on the bed, Dick says, “You’re Tim.”

“M-hm.”

“Why are all the lights off?”

Tim shrugs. “Mom and Dad forgot to pay the bills.”

Raising a brow, Dick asks, “Plural?”

Tim nods. “Plural. They do it a lot, but that’s okay. They always pay them before they get back.”

Humming, Dick looks around the room.

“This is your room?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

It’s hard to believe, the room is so plain, but Dick nods anyways.

Quiet falls over them for a little while, Tim still looking out the window, Dick now with his eyes closed and lying back on Tim’s bed.

“I don’t think they love me,” Tim eventually says. “They say they do whenever we go to Mr. Wayne’s galas, but I don’t think they really love me.”

“Why not?” Dick asks without opening his eyes.

“Because they leave. Moms and Dads don’t leave their kids, right? That’s not what they do?”

Dick opens his eyes to see Tim looking at him with nothing but sadness and grief in his eyes no child should know.

“No,” he says, sorrow heavy in his tone. “It’s not what they do.”

Tim looks for something in Dick’s eyes then nods and looks back out the window.

“Okay. That’s okay.”

Heart heavy with pain for the boy who was deprived of love, Dick reaches out to pull him close and hug him.

Tim offers no protest as he curls up as small as he can against Dick’s side, and Dick in turn wraps around Tim as much as he comfortably can, his face in Tim’s hair as the boy trembles in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” Dick whispers.

When Tim starts to cry, Dick just keeps holding him.

* * *

Tim wakes up twice, once to change out of his uniform, and the second time because his internal clock still set to the timer he had for himself when he was scavenging on the streets after the Kaiju attacks. The second time he wakes up, Tim sits up with his back to the wall and waits for his brain to load.

In the bed beneath him, Dick snores softly.

Relaxing a little at knowing his co-pilot is nearby, Tim starts to look around the room with four other bunk beds. Their bed is in the back of the room, tucked into the leftmost corner, and there’s a bunk bed across from them, and one also pressed to the same wall Dick and Tim’s is, to their right.

In the one immediately across from theirs, the top bunk is bare, nothing on it, and Tim assumes whoever has the bottom bunk still doesn’t have a co-pilot. Glancing at the bottom bed, Tim sees Jason. The older boy is also asleep, chest rising and falling evenly, and Tim snorts at the knowledge that Jason sleeps with his mouth open.

Turning his attention to the bunk to Tim’s right, he sees some Hispanic kid asleep on the top bunk, and can’t get a good look at whoever’s on the bed beneath him, _if_ there’s someone on the bottom bunk.

On the bed across from Hispanic kid’s is a black kid, and he’s awake too. Tim decides to talk to him after glancing at the brown kid in the bunk, asleep, under the black one’s.

Finally, there’s a boy with an air mattress between Jason’s bunk and kid-Tim-still-needs-to-talk-to’s.

Survey of the area complete, Tim’s eyes flick over to meet the other kid’s.

“Hey,” Tim greets quietly.

“Hi,” the other boy replies just as quiet.

“Who are you?”

“Duke Thomas.” Duke narrows his eyes, inspecting Tim. “Who are _you?”_

Tim gestures to the bed beneath his. “Dick’s co-pilot. Tim Drake.”

Duke hums and nods. “Cool. He’s been waiting to get into the action.”

Snorting, Tim says, “Me too.” Eyes turning to the boy in the bed under Duke’s, Tim asks, “Who’s he?”

“Who?”

Tim nods at who he means, and Duke says, “Oh, that’s Damian. Cassandra Cain’s co-pilot.”

Surprise flits through Tim.

“Damian Wayne?” he asks, and Duke nods.

Gesturing to the Hispanic kid across from him, Duke introduces him as Kyle Rayner, and the boy that’s apparently in the bed under his Conner Kent. Then he tells Tim the kid in the air mattress is named Jon Kent.

Frowning, Tim says, “Conner and Jon co-pilots?”

Duke shakes his head.

“Nah, Conner is Kyle’s co-pilot. Jon’s co-pilot is Maya Ducard.”

“If they’re brothers, why aren’t they co-pilots?”

“Adopted brothers.”

“Oh.” Tim nods once, then hops off his bed. Duke jumps down too.

Tim asks if there’s a closet, and Duke gives him a Look.

“What?” Tim asks indignantly.

“Dude, our closet is fucking huge. You could fit, like, two bunk beds in there. Or maybe just one and Jon’s bed.” Duke waved a dismissive hand as he led Tim to the closet. “You see my point.”

Pointing to the door as it slid open, Duke says, “Right there. Our little spaces have our names.”

Duke leaves, then, and Tim walks into the closet that resembles a sports team locker room.

Tim snorts, walking deeper into the room, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and glances at the other occupied nooks as he goes.

 _Kyle!_ is written across the top of one in green paint, _Kon_ in bright red on another, _Jon_ then a smiley face in blue, _Dames_ in black _, Jaybird_ in crimson _,_ then there are three blank and empty spaces near the back. Two empty ones on the left, next to _Dames,_ and one empty one next to _Jaybird._

On the floor is a closed can of golden, blue, and orange paint.

Tim stares at them for a few seconds, then puts his duffle on the bench behind him and starts to take clothes out of the bag.

* * *

Dick wakes up after Duke, Damian, and Jason, like always.

But he feels… weird. Like a piece of him is missing.

He makes a face as he cracks his eyes open, rolling over to face Jason’s bunk, and squints when he sees his little brothers all huddled on Jason’s bed.

Yawning, Dick decides it’s too early for him to really care about whatever they’re talking about. He moves his blanket and throws his legs off the bed, sitting up and scrubbing at his eyes as he does.

“Where’s Tim?” is the first thing he says, which surprises himself as much as it does his roommates.

Jason snickers a little, but Duke and Damian—both with co-pilots of their own—seem to understand, and Dick thinks that this is how they must feel every time they wake up separate from their co-pilots—like a piece of them is missing.

“The closet,” Duke answers.

Dick blinks. “Oh,” he says.

Digging around under his bed for his shoes and duffle bag, Dick stands and Duke points him in the general direction of the closet.

 _“That’s_ what that room is,” Dick says to himself as he walks over to it.

Jason, Duke, and Damian quietly laugh behind him.

Stepping into the closet, Dick calls, “Tim?”

He sees him a second later, and Tim looks over, nodding when he sees him.

“Morning,” Tim greets, returning to his prior task of hanging his clothes and putting them in the cabinets.

Dick smiles as he walks over. “Good morning, little brother.”

A small smile touches Tim’s lips as Dick sets his duffle down on the bench and starts taking his clothes out to organize them.

It’s peacefully quiet between them as they do their tasks, Dick humming a song to himself as his hands move, Tim folding and hanging clothes beside him, and the feeling of disconnect is gone now that he’s with his co-pilot.

They’re two halves of a whole now.

“How’d you sleep?” Tim suddenly asks.

Easily responding, Dick replies, “I had a weird dream-thing. I don’t know what to call it.”

“One of my memories?”

Dick glances over at Tim and studies him. The guess was good and on the money. Tim probably had one of those dreams too, and Dick is surprised when he realizes he’s not disturbed by it in the least bit.

”Yeah,” he hears himself say. “We spoke in your room.”

Tim nods, turning to hang his compression suit.

“We spoke too, kinda,” Tim says, tone betraying nothing.

Nodding once, Dick puts his shoes away.

It’s only quiet until Dick remembers something.

“You were there,” he breathes, freezing. “When my parents died.”

Tim doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, then, “Yes.”

Turning to look at Tim, Dick squints. “I’d met you and your dad, before the show, right? We took a picture.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

Raising a brow and turning to face Dick, Tim answers, “Because I didn’t see the point? What did you want me to say, ‘Oh, hey, by the way, remember that really traumatic and horrible time your parents died? Yeah? Cool well I saw that too so trauma buddies!’” Tim rolls his eyes, putting his duffle bag away. “For some reason, that doesn’t sound like an appropriate thing to say to someone you’ve just officially met.”

Dick stares at Tim and it goes quiet as Tim meets his gaze.

Then Dick laughs.

Tim rolls his eyes again, smiling faintly, and comments, “You’re fucking mental.”

“Ah, damn fucking straight,” Dick replies, smiling brightly as he claps Tim on the shoulder. “But _we’re_ fucking mental, oh co-pilot of mine.”

Shrugging, Tim says, “I can live with that.”

Laughing again, Dick shakes his head and turns to finish putting his stuff away.

“Hey, losers!”

Dick and Tim look over at the door, where Jason’s leaned halfway in, and Jason laughs a little to himself before saying, “Breakfast’s in ten, so I’d recommend you hurry your asses up if you want to have something to eat that isn’t grits.”

Then he’s gone, and Dick makes a face.

“I like grits,” Tim says, raising a brow when Dick shakes his head. “What?”

“Not these grits you don’t. Believe me.” Finishing up, Dick adds, “They’re called Cat 4’s for a reason.”

Confused, Tim doesn’t say anything, and Dick decides to help explain.

“Category 4-grade shits, little bro.”

Tim opens his mouth, then a disgusted look twists his face and he’s shoving Dick toward the door.

“I am _not_ eating something nicknamed after Kaiju shit,” he says vehemently. “Move it, Grayson.”

Dick laughs, saying, “Calm down, Tim. Jason was going to save us some food if we were late.”

_“Move it, Grayson.”_

Rolling his eyes, Dick shakes Tim’s hands off his back and starts jogging out the door to the closet, then directly out the door of their room. He doesn’t wait up for Tim, knowing the younger boy is right behind him, and picks up the pace a little as he runs for the cafeteria. They pass Garth, from the research division, and Cassie, from Diana Prince’s Jaeger division, both holding their own breakfast trays.

Dick waves as he passes, and they call greetings.

When they reach the cafeteria, Dick shoves the double-doors open and smiles, turning to look at Tim briefly.

“Welcome to our Division, Tim.”

Tim ignores him and practically runs to the breakfast line.

Huffing in exasperation, Dick follows him.

“You ruined my moment!” he yells.

“Moment later, food now!”


End file.
